


Boundaries

by Skairunner



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Post-Leviathan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 21:20:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17495582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skairunner/pseuds/Skairunner
Summary: The things that shaped Lisa Wilbourn: A dead city, the girl, Brockton Bay, and Victoria.





	Boundaries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RDavidson (inklesspen)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inklesspen/gifts).



> Note: In short, a mild AU that better allows for Lisa/Victoria, including "Dean mysteriously doesn't exist".

Patrol in the broken ruins of Brockton Bay was a Sisyphean effort, with all the reward of pushing a heavy object up a hill and about as much point. There simply wasn’t much city left to protect. The Protectorate and the Wards were just going through the motions, drawing circles on a waterlogged corpse that really belonged in a body bag. The villains festered, because the city was nothing but open wounds. If this city’s story was an open book, they were on the author’s biography page and it was a picture of God flipping them the bird.

More pressingly, Lisa Wilbourn was, to every intent and purpose important to her, normal. She couldn’t fly. She couldn’t run fast, or build a gleaming red-and-gold hoverboard, or even jump very well. It was just her. A flying patrol would be a lot more palatable. Gain distance from the muck. She’d seen too many dying cities from this distance, and hated that she’d found herself in yet another one. It was her past grabbing at her with its stinking, slimy arms, trying to tell her that she was a part of it, too.

A shadow rippled on a murky puddle, distracting her from her thoughts. She looked up, just as Glory Girl called out. “Custodes!”

“Glory Girl,” she said. “Nice of you to drop by. Care to fly me out?”

“No chance in hell,” she replied with a laugh. “Remember last time when—” Her hair caught on the wind and flew straight into her face, and she started sputtering.

“That’s what you get,” Lisa said, not without some relish. Besides, last time was an entirely different set of circumstances. She started walking again. Squish, squish, the sound of decay seeping into her boots.

“I missed you,” Glory Girl said, pulling out the last few strands from her mouth.

Lisa’s power said: Manpower died. Shielder died. Attaching to you as a coping mechanism. Will be clingy, emotional.

Lisa said: “I missed you, too.”

Glory Girl swooped down in front of her, floating backwards, with the beginnings of a teasing grin. “Did you just,” she said, then stopped when Lisa shook her head, backing off just a hair. “I’m just… really touched.”

Hugging Victoria was an experience. A rush of hair, firm, gentle pressure around her back, ever so slightly being lifted upwards. Because that was the kind of person she was, someone who wanted nothing more than to buoy you. If she cared, she cared with all her heart. She was, by all measures, a better person than Lisa.

“Touched enough to fly me back to HQ?” Lisa said, after the appropriate pause. “You can be my witness, say I totally did the whole route. Because I did.”

Glory Girl’s laugh tickled. “No. I’ll be your witness any time, but I’m not lying for you.”

“Shame,” she murmured back.

~

The things that shaped Lisa Wilbourn:

A city that was long dead, still lying on the autopsy table, coroner nowhere in sight.

The girl.

The bay city, a dead man walking, cancer-ridden and prognosis terminal.

Victoria.

~

The city before the bay—

She’d been on the run ever since she’d gained her powers—“triggered”, they called it. Like it was some psychosis, or she was a curious phenomenon. Not running away from home. Home was somewhere you felt like you belonged, where you’re comfortable with lowering your guard, and such a thing didn’t exist for Lisa. She had a house to go back to, but she was homeless. So she kept running.

When you were a parahuman on the streets, it was never too wise to stay in one place for long. Villains were always hungry for another cape, another pawn to play in their game of violence and crime. She didn’t want any part in that. She wasn’t a _piece_ to be played, used, and thrown away. So she used her power to fend for herself—figure out where was safe to steal from, plot escape routes like she’d lived there for years—then move on before she felt she’d overstayed.

She grew to know the inside of Greyhounds too well, their dark, industrial-grade fabric chairs that somehow manage to accrue stains, and the lies she told to get on and stay on. Her mother, she’d say, was waiting at the other end. She’d been visiting an aunt she hadn’t seen in years, her father had dropped her off but was busy right now, she was a big girl and she could handle it. Only one of the lies made bile rise in her throat.

The last city she lived in before the Wards happened to her was one of the ex-manufacturing hotbeds in the Midwest. Prosperity had evaporated basically overnight, in city-days, and all that was left was for the husk of the industrial district to collapse in on itself. Until then, though, there was a lot of housing for the less fortunate, and for Lisa. Between rotting warehouses and piles of metal and plastic, she met a girl who was nothing like her.

The girl had been sitting on a dumpster lid near Lisa when she woke up, but far enough to not be threatening. Her hair was greasy like Lisa’s, while her clothes had more in common with ash than anything that ever would have been displayed in some shop’s window.

She proposed working together. “We can hit this store in Chinatown,” she said, blunting her _r_ s in a typical New England accent. “She’s easy to distract. You do that. I’ll lift some shit. Do you like salami? She has hers in the basket near the back—”

Lisa wanted to ask her what her motive was. What’s the catch? Why are you being so friendly? But despite everything, her power told her: there were no ulterior motives. She didn’t intend to steal Lisa’s share, or leave her out to dry. She at least believed she wanted to be fair, something awfully rare in Lisa’s life these days. She was lonely. But even the thought of letting herself commit to something that could turn sour, even if everything pointed at it being true—

“Sorry. I can’t say I trust you. You’ll cut and run, and then where would I be?” Lisa stood up. The other girl was only taller than her by an inch, if that. If it had to come to it (and it probably wouldn’t) she could probably outrun her.

The other girl chewed on her lip, trying to work out something more agreeable. Lisa watched. If the other girl was the distraction, it would be easier for Lisa to agree. But there was no way she would volunteer for the risk. She didn’t know her. It wasn’t logical.

The girl decided on an angle, and Lisa knew what she was going to say before she even started speaking. It didn’t make sense, but she went with it anyways, against everything in her that told her this was too good to be true.

The plan went off without a hitch. Later, as Lisa and the girl luxuriated in the spoils, their good mood enough to help her ignore her power like a headache, she thought, _I could really get used to this._

~

The first time she saw Victoria was only a week after Lisa had been plucked from that dying city and adopted by the system.

She was a new Ward, equipped with a nondescript mask and a caseworker (overworked) as her guardian, taking a tour of the facilities, perpetually underfunded, some of the grime too old to wash out. Glory Girl was in the Wards common room when she came back, talking to Vista with a couple other Wards in the area, and someone with brown frizzy hair behind her.

She had a way of being the center of attention. Maybe it was the aura, though she’d swear up and down that it was tamped down, no, really this time. She talked loudly and wore her emotions on her sleeve.

Before Lisa could make her escape, Glory Girl locked onto her. “New Ward?” she ‘asked’ Kid Win, glancing her direction in a way that made it abundantly clear she expected Lisa to speak up and introduce herself. It felt more like a police helicopter’s searchlight than anything else.

“Yeah, what is it to you?” she said.

“Hey. Welcome to the Wards here, I’m Glory Girl, are you from Brockton or a different city—”

The deluge of small talk threatened to wash her away. (Part of it was the aura, her power suggested. It said, _look at me_ ). She really didn’t want to do this right now. “Yeah, sure,” Lisa said bluntly.

Glory Girl drew herself back, aura dimming. “I’m sorry?”

“Don’t really care for talking,” she said, looking her in the eye as best as she could (she was taller than her by a couple inches), “especially with you, anyways.”

Shock, confusion, hurt. Lisa saw all of these emotions swirl inside Glory Girl, intense and oddly satisfying. Lisa turned and left (it wasn’t running away) before anyone could say anything about her, but she couldn’t help but hear a distant _what’s her problem?_

The Wards leader, Triumph, sat down with her later that afternoon. He tried to ease into the problem, leading with more niceties. “How’s Brockton Bay?”

“Cut the—” Lisa said, then paused. “It’s,” another pause, looking for a suitably noncommittal word, “okay. Been okay.”

He smiled, though there was a note of tension behind it. “Have you met your foster parents yet?”

“I told my case worker that I’d rather die.”

His expression froze a little. She could almost see him scrabbling for a safer topic. “It’s good you came on a weekend. You won’t have to go to school until Monday.”

Her own smile was more like a grimace. “I haven’t been for a year. It’s going to be tough going back, weekend or not.”

He chuckled, a meaningless gesture without any feeling behind it, then leaned forward a little. This was it. The real reason he was here. “So, I heard from some of the other Wards about what happened earlier.”

She leaned back on the couch and sighed. “Just give it to me straight, boss.”

“I wanted to know if there was anything that was a problem in particular, between you and Glory Girl.”

She looked down at her palms, wondering what to say.

“You don’t have to say anything, if you don’t want to, or you could talk to a coun—”

“She was being really fucking annoying.”

Triumph stopped, and once again Lisa felt satisfaction at knocking him off his rails. “Like—”

“What more can I say?” She got up, and so did Triumph.

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that. Let me know if I can help in any way.” He offered his hand. “Welcome to the Wards, anyways.”

She shook, and escaped from his fake concern and caring attitude.

~

The second time, they met at a bank. One that, along with its usual clientele, also had a small band of villains in the progress of robbing it.

“Right,” Triumph said, looking at Lisa. “What can you get us on the—”

Heads turned as Glory Girl arrived with a sharp deceleration crack _,_ landing on the PRT van they were briefing behind and shaking the vehicle on its axles. She was furious, aura on full blast, broadcasting on all frequencies her demand that things be made right.

“Don’t do it,” Lisa said. Glory Girl’s attention snapped to her, and Lisa’s breath caught in her chest. She looked furious, practically glowing with conviction, and the same part of her that told her to run from growling dogs wanted her to shut up and wait for her to go away. It was the aura, it was the aura, she told herself, but that didn’t make it easier.

“Do what?” Vista said.

“Why _shouldn’t_ I do it, Custodes?” Lisa’s Ward-approved cape name felt pretentious and awkward, maybe even more so because it was Glory Girl saying it. “My sister is in there. Give me one reason that’s more important than that.”

She was up in Lisa’s face, her pretty eyes the color of choppy ocean threatening to pull her under, finger an inch away from poking her in the chest. The other Wards said something, but Lisa’s world right now was just her and Glory Girl.

Hesitating would mean she would leave. Speak first, think about what to say later. She was good at that, right? Why did she care, anyways? “It’s a trap. That’s what they want you to do, and going in like that is a dumb idea.” What, exactly, the trap was, she didn’t know. Had to find out. Had to believe, because this was now her truth. Why did she care?

“And how do you know that?”

That was an easy one. Summon up all the pride and arrogance she could muster. “Thinker shit.”

“So what’s their plan?” Triumph said.

“Give me a mo’,” Lisa said, turning towards the bank and the floorplan they had. Even as she focused on figuring out what the villains were really up to, she could still feel Victoria like the sun just out of her sight, still blinding in its absence.

She made her best guesses. Things she hadn’t thought of were thrown in by the others, especially, she was somewhat surprised to say, from Glory Girl. Once she stopped to actually think, she showed that she thought well. They would stick together, use their numbers and the PRT to force a confrontation the villains couldn’t fight without dropping something, be it the hostages, the money, or best-case one of their own. Triumph insisted on making a circle like sports players on TV and a battlecry, then they were off.

The plan fell to tatters as soon as it hit the enemy, of course. Lisa was in the best place to see it happen, seeing that she wasn’t in the thick of it all. But it worked enough, and the hostages were saved—Victoria’s sister, too—and they left one of their own behind but got away with the money. Victory by any other name was just as sweet, Lisa decided, untouched and watching Clockblocker moan about a bruise he got from running into a streetlight in the dark like an idiot.

“Custodes,” she heard Glory Girl say, shouting to make herself heard above the idling engines. She clambered between the many pairs of limbs between her and the exit and poked her head out to see Glory Girl floating above.

“How’s the Glory Sister?” she said.

“Yeah, about that.” She ran her fingers through her hair, not catching on any snags. Enviably good hair. “Thanks.”

Lisa raised a brow. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said, thank you. You’re right. If I’d just run in, I might’ve put Amy in more danger. Or worse.”

Lisa eyed Glory Girl for a second. The pause didn’t faze her at all. She sighed. “At least you know.”

There was another quiet moment, one that could’ve been broken by either of them, but it was interrupted by the driver banging on the side of the van, signaling they were leaving. Lisa climbed back in. Glory Girl seemed to hesitate before darting off into the sky.

~

Boundaries that Lisa drew:

Even before she gained her powers (before she broke) Lisa meticulously partitioned her thoughts and secrets. One section for the public, like her parents and school. One section for Reggie. One section for the secrets that she wouldn’t tell anyone, or at least, anyone that mattered.

When she roamed the dead city with the girl (her name was Mia, but to Lisa she would forever be _the girl_ ), it was all too tempting to poke holes in the partitions. Maybe it was because the girl didn’t want to use it against her. Lisa didn’t think she had a betraying bone in her body. Maybe it was her attitude. Like she didn’t care if Lisa didn’t reply, and filled in the conversational coffers by offering up her own thoughts and secrets instead. Or maybe it was because Lisa thought she would never see her again, not after she moved on from the city. (It’d been two weeks since she’d said she would leave, but she tried not to think of it.)

She learned that the girl was from Vermont. That her family believed in one of those sects adjacent to the Fallen. (“So far north?” Lisa had asked. She only got a shrug in return.) That she ran away for reasons not really related to that, but it was a nice bonus not to go to church. Lisa told her the broad strokes of her story, skipping the powers, focusing on the parts after home. The girl didn’t press.

After the bank, Lisa’s relationship with Victoria was somewhat better than after the first day. Perhaps Victoria had magnanimously forgiven her for it, or decided to pretend that it never happened. She never launched salvos of small talk at her like she did that first day, though, which was more than agreeable to Lisa. That might have been because they didn’t talk. Lisa and Victoria were on a say-hi basis, and no more than that—and she didn’t even see her that often. Not a Ward.

But sometimes, when Lisa was on duty at the console—and she was on the console a lot, because she really wasn’t suited for patrol duty—Glory Girl came on the line for coordination with the Wards. It was easier to talk then. There was protocol to hide behind. There was a defined, shared goal, neutral common ground that one didn’t need to gently probe and double-check, was this okay, am I going too far, is this how we’re supposed to relate to each other?

_“Wards HQ, Glory Girl, I’m on site and ready to move in.”_

“Glory Girl, HQ. Triumph’s around the building to the north under the red awning, meet up for instructions, copy.”

_“North red awning. Thanks, Custodes.”_

“No problem, G-girl.”

Simple.

Sometimes, she’d say more, or Glory Girl would:

_“—under. It’s a great day out, shame you’re stuck inside.”_

“Trust me, I hate the great outdoors more than anything. Console’s the most interaction with the city I feel comfy with.”

She got a chuckle out of her, which was oddly satisfying. Something about getting the hoped-for response from people.

Once she went a month without any contact—at least, not to the Wards, because Lisa wasn’t about to ask around with the Protectorate—then appeared again, nonchalantly, asking for a Bay status update. Lisa gave it, and: “Long time no see. Thought you were dead.”

_“Nah. Mom, uh, Brandish wanted us to focus on tests.”_

“It’s still the school year.”

 _“She can’t keep me grounded forever,”_ she said, with what had to be a cheeky grin.

“So what, this is off-the-books?”

 _“I have no clue what ‘this’ is,”_ she said conspiratorially.

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

_“Say nothing, that’s enough.”_

Lisa did. Later she wondered why it all felt so comfortable, and then even later decided it didn’t matter.

~

The worst villain attack in recent Brockton Bay history started like this:

Kid Win on patrol, Lisa on foot, Clockblocker at the console. _“Yeah, Custodes’s right, it’s looking really” —_ a distant boom, a roiling explosion of fire that quickly morphed into smoke, a cacophony of car alarms _—“holy shit what was that?”_

The bombs didn’t stop there. The news quoted the PRT as _triaging the situation_ (they had no clue what was going on), and that _the villains responsible for this will not escape the consequences of their actions_ (they put the PRT on the wrong foot and would pay for it). Later, they started straying from the PRT’s official stance with terms like _deteriorating_ and _collateral damage_ and _uncontrollable turf wars_ , and between the lines was always that question: was the government doing enough? (The implied answer was, of course, no.)

There was a coalition, the Protectorate, the Wards, New Wave. And then there was the Empire, Merchants, teamless-nobodies, small league teams. Everyone, united in the desire to bring down the people who didn’t play nice, a trade-off of necessity on the part of the PRT and hidden prestige, some shadow legitimacy from the side of the villains (the Nazis). Everyone wins, except the ABB, they don’t win, they were brought down to a man when the kid gloves came off, but Lisa thought that maybe the villains pulled out ahead.

She thought about that, because she thought about a lot of things during the attack, helping pull together scraps of data and finding patterns, some impossible to see without her power to help, and sometimes when you dig for what’s hidden you find a little too much. The PRT was as much at the mercy of the villains as the villains seemed to be at the hands of the law. Well, at least she knew. Ignorance was bliss in the way being drunk was. She was thirsty for knowledge.

The middle of attacks on gang bases are often fraught with confusion. Even when in cover and decidedly not on the front of an attack, it was possible to be unlucky, and Lisa was unlucky. It felt like a punch and then her arm was on fire. She looked down. She was bleeding, pain pulsing in her limb, and she walked herself over to one of the ambulances on standby, somewhat in a daze. Her own powers told her it was a ricochet, not someone intentionally trying to kill her. Because that made her feel so much better, almost accidentally dying. She got prescribed liquids and painkillers and mandatory rest, the in-patient kind, and was strung up to approximately a million wires and tubes.

She didn’t expect Glory Girl to visit. She was very close to saying no, thinking of the first time, the trainwreck of a relationship it could’ve been. But the memories of the console were newer.

Victoria walked into the hospital room, wearing a nice blouse and jeans and, apparently, the tiara from her costume that she’d forgotten to take off in her haste (haste to see _you_ , power said, lying libelously). Then she gave up on the rest of the civilian guise and flew over to Lisa but drew herself short of touching her.

Lisa looked up at her, and she looked down at her, both of them feeling the awkwardness of translating words on some speaker to the person in front of them. Or maybe it was just the drugs on Lisa’s side. “Hey,” she croaked.

“Hi.” Victoria licked her lips. “Thought you were dead… missed you on comms.”

It really wasn’t that funny, but her lips made a lopsided grin of their own accord, then she started laughing, doubling over, feeling a slight tugging where she was shot but not really caring. She blamed the drugs.

Victoria sketched a grin too, relieved. “I wasn’t sure how that would come across.”

“I can’t fucking believe you,” Lisa said, then dissolved into more laughter.

“I didn’t think it was that funny.”

“Drugs,” she said, then giggled at that, too.

Victoria watched her with an incredulous expression. “Okay, I think I’ll come back when you aren’t stupid high.”

“Nooo,” Lisa said. She tried desperately to sober up. “Come back.”

She sat on her bed. “You’re almost cute like this, you know.”

“You can’t just _say that_ to a girl,” Lisa drawled.

“Oh?” A perfect eyebrow went up (mostly natural, plucked four days ago and a little bit of pencil in the morning that had miraculously survived the fighting). “Why not?”

“It’s dangerous. Might make her, you know, misunderstand.” She said a lot more things after that, but she didn’t quite remember what, or how Victoria had reacted. She blamed the drugs. And how she looked forward to the next time on radio with Glory Girl, or the one after that, or to going to the mall… yes, all of that was definitely the drugs. The aura. Something.

~

In the dead city on a hazy summer day, a choice came hunting for her.

She’d overstayed by weeks, but she did it for comfort. People liked being with people, and it turned out she wasn’t any exception. Someone to talk to—someone you could depend on sticking around, someone you could work with and rely on… all of it was so attractive. She didn’t want to lose it.

Then she had a Protectorate cape knocking at her trash pile, on a _friendly_ basis (they didn’t want her to run), strictly to talk (it was a job offer/recruitment spiel). She didn’t quite laugh him off, and he had a reason to stay despite the rudeness, so they talked. Mostly him. She heard the benefits, the stats, the personal anecdotes doubtless engineered to be touching and relatable. She said she’d think about it, in a way that wouldn’t involve thinking about it.

“I’ll look forward to your response,” the cape said as he left, and the girl walked around the corner once he was gone.

“Heard the entire thing?” Lisa said. “Funny how transparent they are, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t know you were a cape,” she said, not reverently or afraid. Just facts.

There wasn’t any point in hiding it. She eyed the girl. “Yeah.”

“I think you should do it.”

Something a lot like betrayal bloomed in her. “What? Why?”

“Cuz. If I had a power I’d sign up so fast. Free money _and_ I can stay away from my parents. Why the hell not?”

Lisa had the reasons in her head. Why she hadn’t ever thought of going to the PRT after she got her power. The heroes were just playing at the game, or maybe because they were obviously fighting a losing battle, or maybe that they didn’t earn the real money villains did. Maybe something about freedom and liberty. But they didn’t come out.

She must’ve looked hurt, because the girl added, “Hey, I won’t judge you for selling out to the man. That’s dumb. Money is money.”

“I just…” Her excuses, previously so solid, revealed themselves to shine like a paper wall lit from the other side: transparent. Her next words were sluggish with reluctance. “…Yeah. I’ll… think about it.”

She wasn’t the kind to stay up thinking about meaninglessly philosophical things or the past, but she found herself doing precisely that.

~

Leviathan hit the city with all the force of a cresting wave. Endbringers: executioners of humanity, mass murderers, natural disasters given face and shape. Some whispered they were deities, and not the soft and loving kind. Destroying gods—Titans. They drew breath and the world shuddered.

The Wards were allowed to fight, but only if their parents agreed. Lisa’s caseworker said she’d respect her decision. Lisa wasn’t a fighter, but then she wouldn’t be fighting. Information, any information could help. She didn’t know if Glory Girl was going to be in the fight, but she thought she would.

The command center was like the console wrought large. Reports delivered by Dragon, terse and by-the-book. Casualty reports, names reeled off meaninglessly, cut off in the middle with a status update or a request or a command. She watched the creature (automaton) through the cameras. It was absurdly tough (literally impossibly tough). It was toying with them (it could kill everyone in a moment, if it wanted to). She knew right there that humanity was fucked long-term. Terminal case of kaiju, prognosis dire.

Sometimes she could see glimpses of the flying fighters. Not often. The angles were wrong, the framerate often low, and the constant mist kicked up by Leviathan made the image blurrier than it had to be. She wondered which one of them was Victoria, or if she was already downed. Dead. That couldn’t be the case. (None of the flying marks flew like she did, but her name hadn’t been called.)

It felt like days of rain and low-visibility (an hour and twenty minutes). Then there it was. _Glory Girl down._ She stared at the speaker, grip on her pen slacking. A camera going flying from the waves jerked her back to reality. Focus. One thing at a time. There was nothing she could do.

It didn’t feel good.

~

Back in the dead city, the one that didn’t take a tail-swipe and a million gallons of water to the jugular,  the one that wasted away instead of being murdered, Lisa was feeling uncomfortable, like there was something inside of her that did not like being locked away. It made things feel unreal even as she went through the motions of surviving.

Guess the girl noticed it, too, because she asked: “Are you okay?”

“I am,” she said (it was a lie).

“That’s your lying face.”

She froze for a moment, then realized what she’d done. “God damn.”

“Learn from the best.” Flash of that grin that Lisa just couldn’t hate.

“I don’t know—how to say it.”

“Well, tell me when you’re ready. If.” She went back to digging through the admittedly rich dumpsters behind a grocery (Lisa never, ever had that food. When asked, she said she had a weak stomach. She was there for the company.)

It took another day for her to figure out how to distill the bubbling mess in her into something she could say to the girl. No sarcasm, boil away the bitterness, just say it, goddamn it. She didn’t want to fuck it up.

“Mia,” she started with, trying out the word for size. “I think you’re right.” Maybe that was the watershed moment, because the rest of the words came out in a rush. “I should not be a dumbass and take this opportunity and leave this husk of a city and stop being homeless because of, of, throwing a stupid-ass pity party because I learned the world didn’t work how it ought to work.” Maybe she hadn’t succeeded in removing all of the bitterness. But it was enough. Her fists were clenched and her eyes were hot and staring at a point somewhere just over Mia’s shoulder. It was enough.

“I don’t remember saying all that,” Mia said, not mentioning anything else (and she did notice), “but I’m glad you see the gist of it.” She pat Lisa on the back twice, clap clap, a gesture that felt masculine somehow. “Look, just don’t forget the little folk when you’re up high, eh?”

The cape medical center was set up in the lobby of one of the giant hospitals downtown. Rather, it had been set up as a normal hospital until the casualties had overflowed into the lobby. Rows and rows of cheap metal frames with white curtains hanging from them formed a scene like a refugee city. People in scrubs had the right of way, here, with the occasional white coat carving a path through the crowd like an icebreaker.

She asked a nurse the question that had been with her for what felt like weeks (just hours): was Glory Girl here? She reluctantly led her to a hub with lots and lots of lists, leafed through them, and told her a row and a number like salvation.

Lisa went looking for her.

There she was, lying in a cot, hair limp and eyes skyward. “Amy?” she said, then looked at Lisa. “Huh.”

“Didn’t expect me, did you.” She wandered over to the IVs, pulled at the clipboard hanging there, nestled next to some saline drips. _Blunt chest trauma, segmental fracture of tibia_ (fall), ribs transverse fracture @ angle L/R 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, R 6, collapsed lung. Triaged by Panacea: chest cavity secured, soft tissues restored, lung fixed. Oxycodone 10mg.

“I mean…” Victoria followed Lisa with her eyes. “Kinda fucked up, wasn’t I?”

She let go of the clipboard. “It says you got triaged.”

“My bones are all broken but I’m not dying. It could’ve been so much worse. Amy’s great.”

“Mm.” She played with the lines, running a finger down the clear plastic as it snaked towards the cot.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Victoria said, still watching Lisa.

She froze, then steeled herself for that final push. “Hey,” she started. “I was worried.”

“Aw.”

“I thought you were dead. I think I.”

She didn’t say anything.

Lisa tried to finish the rest of her sentence. “I think I care about you.” She was sitting on the cot, but she didn’t know when that had happened. “A lot.”

The beeping of the heart machine was jarring, but she tried to focus on that and not what her power desperately wanted her to say. Or, for that matter, Victoria.

“Hey,” Victoria said, hand touching Lisa’s. “Can I kiss you?”

“…Sure.”

Her lips met hers, and it wasn’t something magical or amazing like every single person ever seemed to want her to believe. But it meant something for Victoria. Something beyond two girls mashing their lips together in all of its hygienically disturbing detail.

Lisa could probably live with that.

 


End file.
